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Smalltember (Smallvember) begins with a return appearance by the Flop House's favorite (insomuch as a terrible asshole can be a favorite) Canadian energy drink magnate-turned-filmmaker, Frank D'angelo, and his latest cinematic leavings, The Joke Thief. Meanwhile, Stuart reveals his love for all things Stu, Dan gives a few minor script notes, and Elliott's Nicholas Cage has snakes on the brain. Show notes

TLC

Take a trip down memory lane with Wynter, Karen and Margaret as they revisit 1991 in music. If you’ve ever been curious what song was playing when Karen experienced her first same sex kiss, tune in. If you grew up in the nineties, this episode will bring you back to that moment in time. If you spent your formative years in the aughts, and want to experience the 90s vicariously through Pop Rocket, the panel goes into great detail about what makes 1991 such a pivotal epoch, giving us grunge, new jack swing, schmaltzy ballads and music fans that could embrace Nirvana, Boys II Men, C+C Music Factory and REM at once.

As an added bonus, we created a Pop Rocket 1991 Mixtape that you can listen to on Spotify.

All Abouts

Margaret is on thatPen15 tip, and reliving those awkward middle school years via Maya and Anna

Karen is all about the season three episode of This Is Us, entitled R & B

Wynter has fallen hard forCeline Dion after attending an event with the Québécoise chanteuse to promote her new album and tour

Did you know that you can now call and leave voicemails for the show? You can! If you want to comment on an episode, give us any feedback or just call to get advice from a panel member, the number is: (530) 237-4108

Happy Holidays, everyone! Wynter and Karen are joined by special guest panelists Tre’Vell Anderson (Director of Culture and Entertainment at Out Magazine) and 'Who Shot Ya?'s' Alonso Duralde to create the ultimate holiday playlist. Each panelist created a top ten list of their favorite holiday songs, out of which they’d select twenty for inclusion in the official Pop Rocket Holiday Playlist. Well, that was the plan, anyway. In practice, when faced with making the tough choices, they flopped. Whose version of "Sleigh Ride" should be on the playlist: Andy Williams’s, Ella Fitzgerald’s or TLC’s? Spoiler alert: They couldn’t decide.

Plus, the panelists describe their holiday family traditions, and if you’ve ever been curious what the most popular Philippine Christmas song is, resident scholar Karen Tongson reveals the answer.

From Ella Fitzgerald to Donny Hathaway, from the Morehouse Glee Club to Quad City DJs, the variety of musical stylings in this episode will get your feet tappin'.

All Abouts

For the last All Abouts of the year, each panelist picked one thing in 2018, that they could watch, listen to, read, or consume, OVER & OVER again.

Alonso is all about the Amber Ruffin segment on Late Night With Seth Meyers - 'Amber Says Why'

Karen is still all about the series finale of The Americans.

Tre’Vell is awed by EVERYTHING about Cardi B, but especially her recent appearance with James Corden in Carpool Karaoke.

Did you know that you can now call and leave voicemails for the show? You can! If you want to comment on an episode, give us any feedback, or just call to get advice from a panel member, the number is: (530) 237-4108

This week Hal and Danielle are joined by Chris Cubas. He’s a podcaster and TV host who’s been watching wrestling for years. Lately he’s gotten more into New Japan Pro Wrestling, Progress and other international wrestling promotions than WWE. But he’s ready to dive into TLC and the fallout from RAW and Smackdown… especially because he really liked it!

There were tons of great matches on the show, especially the main event for the Smackdown women’s title match between Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Asuka. Where do each of the three competitors go from here? We’ll discuss.

Perhaps the biggest WWE news of the week, though, came from RAW. The entire McMahon family opened the show to declare that both brands were due for a fresh start. The thing is, no one on the panel is feeling all that optimistic about how “fresh” this new direction is going to be, especially when the first match of the new regime was a rematch from Sunday.

But maybe things like Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens returning and Mustafa Ali being added to the Smackdown Live roster, maybe things will get going soon. The team has their takes ready for both the good and bad.

The Three Count

Chris put over the noises Charlotte made as she was in pain her TLC match.

James is driving the ship this week, while Nnekay takes to being in that passenger side with ease! We got one korner, but man is it a korner! Back from the OutRight International Out Summit on global activism- James is MOTIVATED to talk about LBGTQ issue that are happening all over this beautiful glob we got. More specifically, he's going to focus on India's Article 377 and the the ripple effect of change it has had on many other countries. Lets decolonize and change legislation to be less homophobia and to provide liberty for truly all! We also get into chats about Kevin Hart's fuck up... yet again. How Ryan Murphy is effecting change, Why some music videos really irked us... and why you gotta have us pay Vulture? You a BLOG!

For the last several weeks the panel has been in agreement: RAW is in a funk. It’s featured segments with juvenile humor, interesting stories and a lack of stars that make us want to watch.

Turns out there’s someone who agrees with our commentary: Vince McMahon! We know this because he had Seth Rollins come out chastise Baron Corbin for all of RAW’s shortcomings. But was this acknowledgment of the problem properly followed up with steps to fix the issue? The crew will take a look.

In the meantime, Smackdown continued its momentum from the past several weeks with a match that got the internet buzzing: Mustafa Ali vs. Daniel Bryan! It’s the first time a 205 Live star has wrestled the WWE Champion and everyone hopes it won’t be the last.

All of this plus a look at the Asuka vs. Charlotte match and how the Nation of Conversation feels on the way to TLC this Sunday.

WOW - Women of Wrestling

David McLane is a wrestling promoter who’s known for creating the original 80’s program GLOW. The show gained a reputation for being one of the biggest programs that featured all-women’s wrestling on TV at a time where that was rarity.

Frannie Kelley, alongside Ali Shaheed Muhammed, hosts the Microphone Check podcast and when we invited her onto our show, she wanted to talk about one of her formative musical experiences as a teenager: TLC's sophomore album, CrazySexyCool. The three of us talked about how TLC shaped adolescent ideas about sexuality and femininity, how the group repped the hip-hop South at a time when that was just becoming to be recognized nationally, and how the group had one of the more underrated liner notes font game going on.

This week, we are joined by film critic and host of the Linoleum Knife podcast Alonso Duralde! Alonso will be with us for the next couple of months while Margaret is on maternity leave, bringing his particular knowledge of film and the industry to the show. But this week: Girls Trip. The movie stars Regina Hall, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Queen Latifah, and breakout star Tiffany Haddish. They discuss Tiffany Haddish's hilarious performance in this movie, but does Hollywood know what to do with her next? They talk about the role of blackness and black female friendship in this movie, and why it's important more of these films get made. And finally, and probably most importantly, they talk about the role that black hair plays in the movie, and what each of the character's hair styles tells you about their personality.

Guy is all about The Beaverton, which is Canada's answer to The Onion News Network, and Wynter is all about the Jason Bateman led Netflix series Ozark. Plus, Karen catches up on Queen Sugar and Alonso is still watching Degrassi. Plus, we hear what each of the panelists is listening to this week.

This past Sunday was TLC (Tables, Ladders and Chairs), December’s Smackdown exclusive PPV. And between a table match, a ladder match, a chairs match AND and tables, ladders and chairs match, it all got to be a little exhausting.

But The Nation of Conversation breaks down the results and explains why they’re on board for the big moment in the show’s main event between Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles.